Hey everyone, thanks for coming by. The past week I’ve been working on some job related tasks and wasn’t able to post any updates on the stories that I’ve put out. So, thanks for bearing with me while I get some things done. One thing that I noticed is how the days sort of melded together. Not because recovery has made time dissipate or anything like that. But because of COVID regulations have slowly been lifted, more plans have been made with friends and family. I went to a flea market, had meals with friends multiple times, saw my parents, went to visit a friend an hour away and drove two hours out to see a show in the past two weeks. Of course, I also worked the meager hours that work has offered me and even planted my cucumber and dill plants into bigger pots so that I can hopefully make some pickles in the summer. 

    But all of this is to say that I recall, before the pandemic, how, with my energy being less plentiful, time was becoming more precious. Shifts would start in the middle of the night and extend into the early afternoon. I would go home exhausted, despite being scheduled for a regular 40-hour workweek. In order to get a reasonable amount of sleep for these shifts, I took sleeping medication and melatonin in the early evening so that I wouldn’t wake up from anxiety attacks about if I missed my shift or not. This made weekends a hazy recovery where I tried to behave somewhat normally when hanging out with friends and family. And before I knew it, I was sitting at home with the workweek about to begin again. I wrote a lot less and felt hollow. It was an odd feeling and I think I reconciled that feeling a lot with music and media that people might call confusingly aggressive. Which is great and all, but the physical and mental toll that it took on me was greater than what I benefited from, I think.

    All of that is what I remember about time being more precious. Not just the amount, but the times being active. Having to take sleeping pills so that I could go to work in the middle of the night didn’t do me any favors. Those few hours of free time were spent with a hazy mind where the only things I could focus on were chores and errands so that the next day I could move on to the next set of chores and errands. And keeping up and maintaining relationships is healthy for anyone, so not hanging out with people wasn’t an option. It 

    I know a lot of people in my life would tell me to just write at work. And I think that there might be a good amount of people who can do that. But I guess my brain doesn’t function like that. I need large amounts of time left alone to write even things like this down - entries where I contemplate and sort things out in my head. Even more time is required to write something at least somewhat comprehensible. And still more time is required to write something that’s thoughtful. And if I have to be on constant watch for work, then my thoughts go everywhere and scatter again. The process of wrangling and organizing becomes more and more of a burden than anything.

    Maybe it’s all complaining at this point. Even after I return to work in full capacity, I’ll be on a different shift that’s more aligned with how normal people function. Plus, the amount of work will be considerably less than the old shift that I had. This leaves a lot of wiggle room for me in the free hours of the workweek as well as the weekends where I won’t have to drudge through the fog that’s made by waking up in the middle of the night.

    All of this aside, I’m excited to continue with my posts of my works in progress. And I hope that all of you come by to explore those worlds with me!